Monday Night Sketch and Chill

Hey, happy Monday, August, August 11th, 2025. I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas with The Inkspired Life, where I love sketching architecture urban sketching and just capturing the world around me one line at a time in my sketchbook. Hope you're doing great on this, uh, this Monday here. Summer— the leaves are— I actually noticed the leaves starting to change here, so, uh, we're getting closer to my favorite season, which is fall. Not trying to rush it, but it is getting closer. So, um, Yeah, hope you're doing well. Um, tonight, um, I want to do a few things. I'm going to talk about an upcoming workshop I have, um, sketching St. Patrick's Cathedral, and we'll do a quick sketch tonight. And also, I kind of want to do, um, we'll call it an almost, an almost end of summer sketch sale. Almost end of summer sketch sale. So I have some sketches here that I'm going to just show on screen and, um, yeah, put them out there for, for sale. I hope they find a really good home. Uh, if you're watching, let me know where you're watching from, and, uh, I'd love to say hello to you. Awesome, very cool. All right, so, um, you can see on the screen here it says Sketching St. Patrick's Cathedral, new online workshop. So on August 30th, which is a Saturday, from 8 to 10 PM Eastern Time, I'm gonna have an online sketching workshop where I want to walk you through how, how do I take something like St. Patrick's Cathedral and just capture it and put it on paper. Here's a quick sketch I did today while I was out and about, and I use this really cool pen we'll talk about. But let me show a video of just me doing some live sketching, um, at St. Patrick's Cathedral. It's a real short video, so let me switch, uh, screens for a second here. There's really no sound to the video, so don't worry if you don't hear anything. Boom. Let's see, hopefully this switches. There you go. So that's me with my LAMY Folio brown ballpoint pen, and there's some St. Patrick's in the background. So this was a lot of fun, um, capturing this sketch in person. So I'm going to go back a little bit. You can kind of see— I'll play it one more time, it's really quick. But this is just kind of me capturing something while I'm there. Quick, loose, fast, sketchy lines. That's my style. And I I'm not trying to capture the details. This cathedral has so many details. It's, it's a beautiful, beautiful structure. I'm not there to capture those details. I'm there to capture a feeling, a vibe of the cathedral. And that's kind of the goal, and that's the goal of the workshop that's coming up. So switch screens. Hey Linda, good to see you. Hope all's well. It's always great seeing you. So here, here's a quick, um, capture of St. Patrick's Cathedral I did. Uh, here's another one here, you know, very different styles, but again, the similarities are just quick loose lines. And it'll be fun to walk you through my process and how I actually create these, these sketches. So let's do one now. Actually, do one here live in person. Do I have any other ones in here? This is not the book I did my sketching that was in the video, but let's just grab— I'm just going to grab a pen. Um, if you do join the workshop on August 30th My recommendations are paper, whatever paper you like to sketch on, and pens, whatever pens you like to sketch with. So lately I've been using a lot of different color just ballpoint pens, and if you want to use just a pencil, you can use a pencil. It doesn't really matter. You will see me sketching in color, but the point of the workshop is really to capture shapes, forms, ideas, and spirits. Of the building. All right, cool. Hey, MJB-333! Yo, Mr. Nick, what's up? Hey, what is up, MJB-333? Good to see you over there on Instagram. I have a feeling I think I know who MJB is. You don't need to say your name online, but hey, how are you? I always love, uh, when students watch. All right, cool. Let's sketch St. Patrick's Cathedral. Boom. I'm not gonna do the whole thing, I'm just gonna capture— let's just do like a spire. And also in the workshop, the idea is I want to kind of talk about new gothic architecture, and that's, that's the style of St. Patrick's. And we'll talk about some of the architectural features, and I'll walk you through sketching them. Like, we have kind of the turrets here, it's the pointy part. Um, St. Patrick's has these really cool circular windows, sometimes they're called Oriel windows as well. We'll talk about the materials, um, stone, and it's just a general architectural kind of lesson as well as sketching. Again, this is just down dirty quick. I just want to capture these spires. Notice my lines, I'm going back over lines. I'm not doing quick— I'm not doing slow clean lines. Boom. Another classic feature of Neo-Gothic architecture are these kind of Neo-Gothic arches we have as well. And hopefully you could tell that this is some kind of church, some kind of cathedral structure, just by the shapes you're seeing happening here, right? If I was to kind of add more layers, more lines, it starts adding a little more life to it. Got these stairs at the base of the building, and I'm literally just looking at this here, this reference sketch I did. So that's one view, and then you can see here's the view I sketched today as well. Hey, Chip's in the house! Chip, good to see you. Hope all's well, man. It's always great seeing you. Um, some of the things I love— here's one of the things I love about St. Patrick's. Let me pull up that video. Let's— I want to talk about it for a sec. Uh, let's go here. I just want to kind of zoom to the end. Let's kind of pause the screen. So in, you have this neoclassic I'm sorry, this neo-gothic structure, the cathedral in New York City. So imagine skyscrapers, you can see the picture, it's— it kind of sticks out, right? It's not blending in with the surroundings. And it is hard for an architectural project to successfully, um, work within an urban fabric when it's very different than the buildings around it. Just building the scale of it, and the details are so exquisite that you're willing to forgive it not blending in, not speaking the language around it. It's unique, individual, um, and original to the context. So that's one of the things I really love about it. It just stands out from what surrounds it. It's not afraid to be what it is. And that is a really good sign for me. That's a sign of good design, good architecture, is a building is not afraid to be what it is. And the scale of it, I think the scale is really, really nice and it works well. So that's one, just one of the couple things I like about it. Hey, D-Ray's in the house, great to see you! Boom, let's sketch! Of course, I love sketching. You guys are so funny. Um, we'll come back. I'll probably do another sketch, but I want to move on just briefly, um, from here. I figured I wanted to do kind of an end of— almost end of summer sketch sale. I want to show a couple sketches I've done here, talk about them, maybe some of the things I like about the sketches. And if you're interested in any of the sketches I'm about to show Uh, send me a message or an email and say, hey, I'm interested, and I'll just go by— I'll give each one a number. Each one you see here is going to be $20. So I'm gonna— I'd like to sell these for $20, get them into some homes where you guys can enjoy these. They're hanging up behind me. Love my display behind me. But anyway, all right, here we go. All right, so the first sketch I'm going to show This is— we'll call this number 1. Um, can anybody tell me what this iconic building is in New York City? So we have the spire of the Empire State Building. Empire State Building, great example of Art Deco architecture, early 1930s. This building was crème de la crème when it was built. I love the spire, love the shape of it, so easily identifiable. And I just love the vibe. I just threw fun colors on here. You guys know I love throwing down color, and, uh, I thought it'd be cool just to kind of play around some creative markers and bring some vibrancy to this, this otherwise basically gray building. So here's the Empire State Building spire. I'm going to call this number 1, and there is a practice lighthouse sketch on the back. Cool. Again, if anybody's interested in any of these sketches, let me know. You can even put it in the comments here. Um, if you're interested, in the first comment I see, that's the person that will get the sketch. So they're going to be $20 each, US mailing only, because it's going to cost me like $5 to mail. Um, here's another version of the Empire State Building. I kind of like— I like the power of black and white on this. And I noticed the spire didn't finish at the top. So, um, that— was that intentional? No, but I like the way it looks. I kind of started— typically I'll start from the top down when I sketch a building. Here, for some reason I didn't, but I still like the way this looks as well. Actually, these two pieces would look really cool together. So you can— I don't know if you can see them both. So these are, uh, two sketches of the Empire State Building. This is— this, the black and white one, is sketch number 2. Numero dos. Next, next. Um, all right, probably my most favorite structure in New York City is Brooklyn Bridge. I never get tired of sketching the Brooklyn Bridge. Um, we talked a little bit about the gothic arches. When we were talking about St. Patrick's, you see the gothic arches happening again. That for me is what's iconic about the Brooklyn Bridge, are these, these arches you see on it. This is a Sharpie, black and white Sharpie. And sometimes I think the black— my black and white sketches are more powerful, even more so than ones with color. I never— I didn't add color for a long, long time on my sketches. I was afraid I had to capture the exact color of what I saw, what the building really is, what the structure really is. I've learned that's false. I can just make— like here, this is not— these are not the colors on St. Patrick's. There's the colors I felt when I was doing this, and that's kind of how I choose colors. Anyway, here's a really cool sketch of the Brooklyn Bridge, uh, iconic American flag on it as well. And this would be sketch number 3. Número 3. Brooklyn Bridge is number 3. Let's go to number 4. We're going to revisit the Empire State Building, actually. So sketch number 4 is another version of the Empire State Building. I have sketched it a lot, and I actually like this one too. This has the spire and part of the building. Um, I could almost actually cut this in half if I wanted also. So that is number 4. Number 5, sketch 5. Um, this is a bridge. There's— I forget how many bridges there are in Central Park. There are a lot, a lot of, a lot of bridges. This is just one of them. Um, this one is really cool. I liked— I like the sweeping kind of curve that happens with this arch and how it kind of swoops down to the base there. For me, that was a really fun thing to sketch, was this connection, this kind of swoop. Black and white sketch again, Sharpie. Added some people on this just for some scale. So you get a sense of what size that bridge really is. So this is number 5. Número 5. Hope you're enjoying this quick show and tell, this end— this almost end of summer sketch sale show and tell. Uh, yeah, this is a cool sketch. I know I said about them all, but It's okay to like what you do. Remember, it is okay to like what you do, and it's okay to be proud of what you do and put it out there. It's not bragging. This is not bragging. Being braggadocious is sharing a passion, something I really love, love doing. So don't be afraid to put your passion and share it out there. Um, this is really cool. This is Van Leeuwen Ice Cream. Brooklyn Bridge in the background. This was a fun sketch for me to do. This was actually really challenging because I didn't want the bridge to be the star of the sketch. I really wanted this— the Van Leeuwen building here to pop out, and the Brooklyn Bridge is kind of almost misty or kind of faded in the background. Why was this challenging for me? Because my brain always wants to make the Brooklyn Bridge the star of the show whenever I sketch it. So I had to flip my thinking and kind of really refrain myself from, you know, really popping the bridge out. So sometimes when we're sketching, we do have to pause and think, maybe flip our thoughts around, our ideas around. Um, maybe think about the subject a little bit before you sketch it, especially when you have more than one structure or building in the sketch, right? Which one do you want to be more dominant? So this I did really have to think about before I put it on paper. So pretty cool sketch. This one's number— what am I, number 6? This is number 6. Number 6. Um, last one I'm going to show tonight. So I am not pushing— I'm not rushing the seasons along. Here we have a sketch that is inspired by the Christmas tree in Bryant Park. So I love Bryant Park, very iconic location in New York City, uh, borders the New York Public Library, has a really cool lawn in front of it, Christmas Village in the winter. So here's the tree, and then you can see some of the buildings in the background here, and I added some people on this as well. And we're back to just another kind of Sharpie black and white sketch. And that's sketch number 7. All right, all right, so that is my, uh, quick summer sketch— almost end of summer sketch sale show-in. Tell. That's a tough one to say fast. It's fun to say though. So if you are interested in any of these I showed, let me know. You can send me a DM, a direct message on Facebook, on Instagram, or somewhere in the comments. And the first one I see, if you're interested, you'll have first access to any of these sketches, uh, $20. Per sketch. Hopefully that's cool. All right, awesome. Why am I selling sketches? Why am I— well, a couple reasons. One, um, really a couple reasons. Number one, um, it helps for me to buy, you know, pens, supplies. That's huge. Uh, number too, is I really— I'd love for these to go to homes where people can enjoy them. They're hanging up in here, which I love, but I just want to spread it out there. Um, it could be a really cool gift for yourself or someone you know who might like New York City or any of these structures. So holidays are coming up as well. All right, cool, awesome. All right, so here's what we're going to do. I want to do one more sketch Um, I think I'm just gonna do a loosey-goosey freeform sketch, nothing planned, kind of like I did the other night I was on. I ended up doing this perspective sketch. I just randomly threw pen down, some colors down. So I'm going to spend a few minutes kind of sketching, less talking. Feel free to ask questions or comments. And then we'll wrap up. Actually, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to work right over this. Why the heck not? And I think I'm going to play around with— I think I have some markers in here. Maybe we'll just throw some color on it, color over it, see what happens. You'll— lots of times I'll talk about setting a creative intention before, or before you start working on a sketch or an art piece. Um, it kind of gives you a little focus, a little bit of direction. So I'm going to set a creative intention with this right now. My only intention is It's playtime. It's let's go to the sandbox and just create something fun. And I'm going to give myself just maybe 5 minutes on this. So I'm going to set my timer for 5 minutes and we'll see what happens. No rules on this, guys. Just want to have fun. So let me set my timer. Set timer for 5 minutes. 5 minutes counting down. Thank you. All right, that's my 5-minute time limit. There we go. So that was fun, just throwing down some colors on here. Yeah, kind of like it. I just feel like it needs a pop. It needs a bright pop of, um, so I'm just— this is what I call grabbing grab-and-go creativity. I'm just grabbing and going with whatever is right here within reach. I'll zoom out so you can kind of see what I got going. Boom. I'm just grabbing out of my bag here, bunch of pens here. Oh, that is not yellow. I meant to grab yellow and I grabbed gray. Oh, maybe I don't have— I thought I had a bright yellow in here. Negative, negative. All right, I don't have any bright yellow, so I am going to go with orange. There we go. Cool. Cool. All right, there we go. All right, I think that's gonna be a wrap for tonight. Um, thank you for watching. Hope you learned something, enjoyed these few minutes together. Maybe you took away some inspiration or a sketching tip or just are leaving with a smile. I appreciate you all so much. Thank you for watching. I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas with the Inkspired Life, where I love sketching architecture and just capturing the world around me one line at a time. If you're interested in sketching St. Patrick's Cathedral with me online, check out the workshop coming up. Um, you can see it on the screen, the website address. It's also should be in the comments as well. End of the description of the video. All right, have a great, great day. Until we meet again, sketch boldly, live creatively, and inspire endlessly. See you soon.